


Public Displays of Affection

by ckret2



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: ... kinda, Demiromantic Alastor, Demisexual Alastor (Hazbin Hotel), Exhibitionism, Heavy Angst, Hotel Sex, Humiliation, Kinda, Love Hotels, M/M, Masturbation, No Fluff, Obsession, Past Relationship(s), Porn Watching, Post-Relationship, Public Humiliation, Self-Destruction, Self-Hatred, Smut, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism, but like within that umbrella he's being written as Maximum Horny here, sex cam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ckret2/pseuds/ckret2
Summary: When you've been denying you're in love for so many decades that your body activated your libido for the first time just to try to force your hand, you really only have two options:1. Let your life spiral out of control as you go to more and more desperate extremes to satisfy your uncomfortably carnal craving for someone you can't have.2. Quit trying to suppress your feelings and go tell him the truth.Alastor's never been a quitter.Which is why he's now jerking off in front of a web cam.
Relationships: Alastor/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 103





	Public Displays of Affection

**Author's Note:**

> So sometimes I write ace/aro Alastor as "0% interest, never ever been attracted to anyone" and sometimes I write ace/aro Alastor as "demi-ace/demi-aro, as in attracted to ONE PERSON EVER, but like, obsessively so," and when I do that, it is 1) in order to write something wildly self-indulgent, and 2) in order to torture Alastor by turning him into the instrument of his own suffering (in other words: write something wildly self-indulgent). If you want nothing but Alastor in pain stick around.
> 
> I would like to thank my beta for the title and for offering this lovely fanart before the fic was even finished, based on the fact that Alastor thinks "thirst tweets displayed onscreen over the celebrity they're referring to" and "the dialogue cards used in silent movies" are basically the same thing:  
> 

It was nearly four in the morning when Alastor approached the Private Eye Inn.

Perhaps he was imagining it due to some mixture of his desperate mood, his mounting paranoia, and his anticipatory disgust—but he was fairly certain that, even from across the parking lot, he could smell old semen.

His hands, laced behind his back, squeezed tighter around his cane.

The cruddy little one-story building was set back from the road, along the same stretch of dark, lonely highway as a nearby row of strip clubs and brothels but far enough from them that their lights and thudding music didn't reach the inn. The sign over the roof, a cartoonish eyeball with a neon-framed magnifying glass on a keyhole-shaped sign, was bright enough to be seen from far down the road, but neither the sign nor the blue light slipping through the lobby's heavily-curtained windows illuminated the parking lot in the slightest. Alastor suspected that was by design. It wasn't until he was close enough to the building for the red glow from his own eyes to illuminate it that he saw the crumbling cinder blocks of the outer wall and the thick black cables strung between the cracks.

He slowed down for a moment at the sight of those electrical cables—they reminded him too much of a certain TV-obsessed pest whom he'd prefer _not_ observe what was about to happen. But he quickly sped up again. Yes, of course there were electrical cables. They were something of a prerequisite for what he was here to do. He knew the risk he was taking. He was taking it anyway.

A couple of scantily-clad women were leaning against the cold wall near the lobby door, the ends of their cigarettes tiny fiery glows in the dark. Their silhouettes were turned toward him as he approached the door; but it wasn't until he was close enough that the light through the cracks of the windows could briefly sweep over his features and the women could hear the white noise on his breath that they tensed in recognition and stood straighter.

Voice shaking, the more courageous of the two said, "H... hey there, stud. You looking for a—?"

"No, thank you!" While the woman's voice felt like it had slid subtly underneath the darkness, muffled by the night, Alastor's pierced straight through it. He was used to being the loudest thing he could hear, but right now he felt like half of Hell could hear him. He stubbornly maintained his volume. "I won't be needing your services, ladies." He didn't realize how tense he was until he unlaced his hands to free one to open the door and felt how stiffly his shoulders and elbows moved.

He tipped his head to both ladies and entered the Private Eye Inn.

###

While in the living world, the word "taboo" meant "never should you ever," in Hell the word "taboo" meant "the hot new thing you've _got_ to try."

Sexuality and the expression thereof got weird.

There are exhibitionists. There are voyeurs. In the living world, people who want to express these kinks in a healthy manner typically have to make contact with each other online. People who express these kinks in an _unhealthy_ manner tend to end up in jail for, respectively, indecent exposure or stalking.

In Hell, somebody took a look at all these dead exhibitionists and dead voyeurs and said, "This is a business opportunity."

Scattered through Hell, typically huddled awkwardly between sexual businesses and suburban neighborhoods, were odd little establishments called peep hotels. They offered rooms by the hour—and access, in the form of both pay-per-view and monthly subscriptions, to live streams of cameras peering into the rooms. Exhibitionists booked a room, voyeurs tuned in, everybody got their rocks off, and the hotel pocketed all the money.

The higher-end peep hotels had rooms as lavishly furnished as any downtown love hotel; but those were a dying breed, now that cam girls and cam boys were undercutting peep hotels' subscription fees and there were several dating apps catering to the slim minority of the population that actually liked receiving unsolicited dick pics. The few peep hotels left were typically ancient, isolated, and dingy, and offered rooms that would be considered spacious for a walk-in closet but could hardly hold a bed.

These little peep hotels were generally both frequented and watched only by absolutely shameless skeeves (with the notable exception of a handful of very, _very_ ashamed skeeves who got off to shame). They were nasty, crusty, and unmaintained, and never before tonight had one's doorway been darkened by the Radio Demon.

###

"A- _hem_." Alastor knocked his cane against the bulletproof glass dividing the front counter. "Good morning!"

The front desk clerk started, turning away from the glow of several rows of tiny TVs. Apparently these TVs were the bluish light Alastor had seen from outside the Private Eye Inn, because there were no other lights on in the lobby. Based on what little Alastor could see of them from this angle, and on the way it took the front desk clerk three attempts before Alastor heard his pants zip up, they were probably showing the camera feeds inside the rooms.

Alastor's smile thinned. Wonderful.

"Sorry—bell over the door's busted—didn't hear you—" The clerk pulled a chain to turn on a naked bulb over the counter, and started again at the sight of Alastor. He looked like exactly what Alastor would have expected from the kind of man who'd spend his work hours jerking off to customers in their hotel rooms: sickly, sweaty, dark circles sagging under his bloodshot eyes.

Then again, did Alastor look much better? He hadn't slept well in days, tossing and turning and tangling in sweaty sheets, groaning from decades-old frustration, alternating between burying his head under his pillow and burying his pillow between his thighs. He felt his skin pulling taut around his grin, like it was threatening to rip. The bags under his eyes might have been bigger than the clerk's.

While the clerk gaped, Alastor said, "I'd like to book a room. For..." He glanced at the chart taped on the inside of the glass—only hourly rates—and said, "One hour, please."

The clerk continued gaping. "You want to book a room."

"That's what I said!" Alastor leaned down a little closer to the holes roughly drilled through the glass. "Say, can you hear me back there all right? Should I turn up the volume?"

"You're the _Radio Demon_."

"And you're a hotel clerk. Do you have a room, or do I need to empty one for you?"

"N-no, no! We have room. But, you, uh..." The clerk cleared his throat. "You know this isn't a, er—a _normal_ hotel, right?"

Alastor fixed him with a condescending look, eyebrows raised and mouth twisted in a smirk. "Do you think I'd have come all the way out to this _dump_ if I'd been looking for a normal hotel?" An unseen studio audience laughed.

The clerk jumped, looking around for the voices. "R... right." He scrambled into action, hands darting indecisively between his various supplies: cash register, ledger book, box of keys. He accidentally knocked over an energy drink and hastened to right it, but it was already empty. "Room for one hour, after midnight rate, uhh... that'll be—"

"I don't carry cash," Alastor said.

The clerk paused, then nodded. "Right, sure, sure! We also take—"

"I don't carry that, either."

The clerk paused for a little bit longer. "Ah." He raised partially out of his seat, pointing toward his pants. "So... we're talking the _usual_ alternative method of payment...?"

" _Not what I meant._ " The glow of the lone light bulb dimmed as the glow of Alastor's eyes brightened. "That won't be a problem, will it?"

"Nope!" The clerk slammed his butt back down in his chair. "No-ho-ho sirree, no problem!" He glanced back to look at his rows of TVs, mumbling under his breath, "Cleanest room, let's see..." He sat forward, rummaged through the box of keys, and pulled out one with #13 written on the a duct taped handle. "Here." He slid it through a one inch gap below the glass. "Last couple checked out about midnight, s'probably dried out by now."

Alastor was pretty sure he could feel his body hair attempting to retract into his body from sheer revulsion. "Spectacular." He gingerly picked up the key between two claw tips, and then glanced up at the rows of TVs. "Well," he muttered. He leaned to one side, trying to see the TVs more directly. "That won't do, will it?" His eyes skimmed the numbers taped on the corners of each screen.

"What?" The clerk turned to look at the TVs just in time for a mass of shadowy tentacles to burst out of the screen for room thirteen. He yelped, jerking back, and almost fell out of his chair.

"That show's not for you." Alastor turned away.

He hadn't been imagining it; the hotel really _did_ smell. The farther he went down the hall, the more obvious it got. He wasn't even sure all the stenches were sexual fluids—but he had next to no experience with that. Most of what he thought sex smelled like came from smelling something weird in a place where he thought that sort of thing would happen and guessing they were probably associated. Maybe he'd been wrong and _this_ was the real deal.

Ghastly.

He happened to glance toward the front counter as he was unlocking the door and spotted the clerk with his hand slipping under the front counter—arm turned oddly, like he was trying to feel something on the bottom of the counter. Alastor had heard about those silent robbery alarms at gas stations and the like—punch the button and some private security team charges over to the business and pummels the robber. Really? This pathetic lowlife that got off to blurry camera feeds had the gall to call security on the _Radio Demon?_

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Alastor called.

The clerk froze.

"I suggest you think _very_ carefully before pushing that button."

Alastor didn't think he needed to state exactly how displeased he'd be if a pack of losers with pea shooters burst into his room while he was occupied.

The clerk remained frozen. Alastor gave him a friendly wave, slid into his room, and shut the door.

###

Once upon a time, Alastor had never been in love.

And then he met an overambitious megalomaniac with a castle in the sky, a plan to become a god, and a laugh that made shivers run up his spine as easily as an ice cube pressed to his neck.

And the thought of turning into someone who loved was so terrifying that Alastor had immediately broken things off with Sir Pentious—and destroyed his entire flying, steam-powered kingdom to ensure he'd never try to get Alastor to come back.

And after all that, it turned out Alastor had been just a little too late to stop himself from turning into someone who loved.

The problem was he'd never figured out how to turn _back_. He'd only figured out how to deny it, how to hide it, how to drown it out. How to keep it from leaking out of his mouth when it was roaring in his head and pounding in his chest. He'd gotten very good at pretending he was still the person he used to be.

Once upon a time, Alastor had never felt lust.

And then some loving thing deep inside of him, frustrated at being suppressed and ignored and denied for years and years, had twisted its way out of his chest, crawled down between his legs, and festered.

And ever since then, once every few weeks or months, Alastor found himself unable to sleep for the fever burning low in his stomach. It throbbed through his veins, it trembled in his hands, it soaked his hair and fur in desperate sweat. He ground his burning face into the sweat-soaked mattress to muffle his guilty sobs and his frustrated screams as his hands curled between his legs, chasing those few seconds when his mind switched off and the pain abated.

Like a tactile hallucination, he could almost feel snakeskin under his finger pads and between his thighs.

###

With the door to the tiny room shut, Alastor's shins pressed against the foot of the bed and the tail of his coat brushed against the door.

"Not much to the place, is there," Alastor muttered. He glanced up, looking for cameras—there it was, sitting just above the door. Like a red round eye. Giving it a wry look, he said, "I've heard that places like these have been used for orgies. Clearly that's a wild exaggeration—unless they're being held by roaches." He glanced down at the wall. "That's right, I'm talking about you. Get out of here."

The cockroach didn't move fast enough. He crushed it under the butt of his cane.

The bed had no footboard, and instead of a headboard there were vertical metal bars like a prison window. No blanket, just a couple of flat pillows and sheets, dingy off-white. Even without touching the bed, Alastor could see several places where the rumpled sheets were... crisp. As promised, whatever the last visitors left had apparently dried out; Alastor wasn't sure whether or not that was a plus.

Alastor scooted around the side of the bed—which was just as close to the wall as the foot was to the door. "This is, far and away, the sorriest stage I think I'll ever perform on." He shoved the sheets and pillows to the foot of the bed with his cane, stripped off his coat, and carefully lay it down over the top half of the bed. There was no way he was going to put his coat back on when he left, but he'd rather leave slightly underdressed than sit directly on that bed. Anyway, who was going to look twice at a mildly disheveled man trying to make his way across town just before the crack of dawn? Just another sad sinner doing the walk of shame.

"Well, what do you think?" Alastor asked.

Dryly, his cane replied, "I think you're going to get syphilis the moment you sit down."

"They really _do_ offer the full experience here. All the perks of intercourse without actually having to do the deed."

The room felt too small to fit the laughter of Alastor's hidden studio audience.

He banished his cane—he'd thought that being able to talk to himself might steady his nerves, but just like the studio audience, the second voice in the small space just rattled him. Anyway, he didn't need to talk to the cane when he had a real audience. He leaned over the bed, head tilted, and smiled grimly at camera's shining red eye. "Let's get to it, then."

The camera was no microphone, no; and, in fact, even though he was _assuming_ the camera picked up audio, he couldn't see any evidence of a mic. But whether or not he would actually be heard, talking to the camera made this a little easier. He was used to performing into a little electric machine, putting on a show at some ungodly hour of the morning, trusting that someone somewhere out in the dark night was listening. He'd never see them, he'd never meet them. In fact, for all he knew, he could be performing to an audience that was completely asleep, no one tuned in, no one caring—all his efforts poured into the night to be evaporated in the light of dawn.

In life, there had always been something desperate to the act of spilling out his soul in the form of words every night—if he was just a little louder, he could guarantee someone would hear him; if his voice was just a little brighter, he could guarantee someone would see his glow in the night. He never knew if a single thing he said in the night would be heard, would be remembered. Even if every night before someone somewhere had listened to him, even if he got letters from people pulling night shifts telling him they listened to him every day at four a.m.—maybe _this_ would be the night every radio was turned off. The rush of power that came from knowing he would be heard was always mixed with a dash of fear that he wouldn't.

This was so much like that; but this was the first time he hoped no one would tune in. Let everything that happened tonight be burned away in the first light of day.

He sat in the center of his coat, decided he was much less concerned about his shoes getting the bed dirty than he was about the bed getting his hooves dirty, and swung both legs up onto the bed without removing his shoes. He stared up at the camera, sitting up perfectly straight to avoid soiling his shirt on the metal headboard, hands curled tight in the lining of his coat, legs bent and knees separated.

What the hell was he doing here?

Trick question. He was putting on a show, of course.

"Now, none of you tuned in tonight to watch me banter about the bed bugs—so I'll cut to the chase." He reached up, undid his bow tie, and pulled it out of his shirt collar. "Allow me to start this off with a preemptive apology. I'm aware of how beloved I am for my riveting conversational skills, so it truly does pain me to deprive you all of my sparkling wit." He held up his tie, one end in each hand. "But there's certain language you can't use on the radio, you know. I don't want to accidentally say something unseemly." He winked to the camera, slid the band of the tie between his teeth, and knotted it behind his head.

###

No more than a couple of hours ago, Alastor had been chest down in bed, leaving rips in his wrinkled bedsheet with his teeth, as much fabric shoved into his mouth as he could get to muffle himself as he groaned, over and over, words slurring together, " _sir-pen-ti-ous-sir-pent-i-ous-sir-pen-ti-ous-sirpent, sirpent, ohgod, ohgod ohgod ohgod ohgod pentiouspentiouspentious ohgod imsorry imsorry im-sor-ry-im-sor-ry-im-sor-ry—_ "

The words were almost inaudible for the static. The static and the organ music. Alastor always played organ music. _He_ played organ.

He had a pillow between his legs. He had a snakeskin pillowcase. It wasn't a real snakeskin, of course—no, Alastor was quite familiar with _real_ snakeskin—on a real snake the texture of the scales differed between the back and the belly, and the hide he'd used to make this pillowcase alternated back and forth between belly scales and back scales, as though one snake had half a dozen bellies and half a dozen backs. No doubt it was basic bovine leather, pressed into a snakelike texture. The fact that the leather wasn't real snakeskin mattered as little as the fact that the pillow wasn't a real body. It _felt_ right—the right texture under his fingers and between his thighs, cool and slick and firm. And he could imagine... He could imagine...

It wasn't enough.

Once, frantically rutting into his hand in the shower had been enough. He could wash the mess from his hands and the salt from his cheeks and crawl back to whatever he was calling his bed that night, hollowed out and spent. And then one night it hadn't been enough, and he was left dissatisfied and still burning, drained but without any relief, writhing in helpless want but unable to do anything about it with his equipment temporarily offline.

So he'd started curling around a pillow then, telling himself it was a body. For a while, that had been enough. And when that had ceased to satisfy, he'd started breaking into Sir Pentious's abandoned safe houses to steal old clothes—the kinds of things he no longer wore but the things Alastor remembered him best in. And then he'd started spending nights in the abandoned safe houses. And then he'd started playing organ music. And then he'd gotten the pillowcase.

And for a while, each new adjustment, each new potent reminder of what he'd thrown away, was enough to let him scratch that itch. It was enough to let him jerk out the fever and return to being cold and hollow and calm.

But like an addict, every time he increased his dosage, his body acclimated to it and developed a resistance. Every time, his body learned to see through the trick and screamed through his nerves that this wasn't what it needed. And withdrawal would grip him again, leaving him shaking and feverish—and if he wanted to, he could wring out his dick as thoroughly as if he was trying to squeeze the last toothpaste from an empty tube, but it wouldn't give him an ounce of satisfaction.

Not more than a couple of hours ago, Alastor had been uselessly attempting to pump himself even though his seed was already smeared between his belly and the pillow, one eye pressed against the mattress and the other eye staring out the window, blearily watching the distant black speck of an airship silhouetted on the dark blue night sky; and he'd thought to himself, in shame and disgust, _if Sir Pentious could see me now—_

And then he'd thought, with a lurch of arousal that felt like the sudden drop of accidentally walking off a stair step, _if Sir Pentious could see me now..._

If he could see Alastor, see how desperately he wanted him, needed him, was reduced by the mere thought of him to whining gasping apologizing begging _desire_... Well, Alastor didn't know what then, but the thought of Sir Pentious witnessing it was like lightning through his system. He needed Sir Pentious to know what a helpless, hungry creature Alastor was for him. He needed to look Sir Pentious in the eye, ashamed and aflame, dick stiff and legs shaking, sob choked in his throat, soul utterly exposed to him. He needed Sir Pentious to see him like this.

But he absolutely could not, under _any_ circumstances, _ever_ let Sir Pentious see him like this.

Not just because of the absolutely devastating humiliation of having to reveal that oh, yes, actually, Alastor had been in love with Sir Pentious this entire damn time—but because _Sir Pentious_ didn't deserve to have that revelation thrust on him. This was a truth that would _hurt_ Sir Pentious, and Alastor had already hurt him quite enough. Sir Pentious didn't deserve to put up with the man who'd stabbed him in the back suddenly flinging himself upon him again, like a druggie who'd fallen off the rehab wagon crawling back to his dealer, like a self-entitled reprobate who thought the object of his obscene affections should be flattered by his unwanted attention. Alastor had put Sir Pentious through enough. It would be unforgivable to subject him to this knowledge.

But maybe if there was a _chance_ Sir Pentious might see him like this...

Now. There was no way that Sir Pentious watched broadcasts from peep hotels. He disdained all public displays of sexuality, _especially_ ones where money exchanged hands. Whether the performer was a mere burlesque dancer or a full-fledged practitioner of the world's oldest profession; whether the display was a carefully constructed and marketed product of the pornographic picture show business or the disorganized and disjointed flashing of a mere lonely pervert wearing a trench coat and little else.

When Alastor had left Sir Pentious, the precursor to the modern peep hotel had already long existed in the form of hotels that rented first story rooms to exhibitionists, second story rooms to voyeurs, and included conspicuous holes in the second story floors that a dozen spectators could eagerly crowd around; and Alastor vividly remembered Sir Pentious sneering and rolling his many eyes as they passed one. Peep hotels were, like tennis courts or tetherball poles, the stadiums of a one-on-one sport in which Alastor had zero interest, and thus he was almost entirely oblivious to their inner workings. Sir Pentious was the one who'd explained to Alastor the concept behind the places.

He had certainly painted the least flattering picture of peep hotels that he could. He detested them, and he looked down not only on the performers, but also on the audience.

Tonight, Alastor desperately hoped that Sir Pentious was a hypocrite.

No way did Sir Pentious watch peep hotel broadcasts; but the slim, slim, slim chance that Alastor was wrong, that Sir Pentious _might_ be watching—oh, hell. That might just be enough to help Alastor break his fever.

###

It was just like his nightly broadcasts on the radio had been, he told himself. Exactly the same. Exactly the same.

Except he'd never jacked off while on air before, had he? In his day and age, that had been the sort of thing that got your typical radio host fired.

He'd been trying to persuade himself to unbutton his pants for the past minute.

What was more embarrassing: a half dozen late night perverts seeing the Radio Demon expose his dick, or a half dozen late night perverts seeing the Radio Demon chicken out at the last minute from exposing his dick? He shut his eyes, unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants, and jerked the zipper down.

And now all of Hell knew he had red-and-white pinstripe boxers. (No, not all of Hell, he insistently told himself; a half dozen late night perverts at most.) There, that hadn't been so difficult, had it? Now he just had to get his pants off and try to make sure he didn't look as terrified as he felt. He had to remind himself that as long as he kept his face composed, nobody else would be able to detect the jittery buzzing in his ribs, the feeling like a dial twisting back and forth in search of a station that was too far away to hear.

As he slowly slid his pants down off his hips and the edges of his unzipped fly rubbed over the front of his boxers, he was both startled and relieved to realize he was already half hard. Good, he supposed; it would make this go a little bit faster, wouldn't it?

He forced himself to open his eyes again and meet the gaze of the camera. Its blank red eye stared down at him. Half a dozen viewers at most, if that. At this time of night, probably too sleep-deprived, drunk, or high to recognize who they were looking at anyway. At worst, they'd probably suspect their performer was some celebrity impersonator who got off to dressing up like the Radio Demon. And that was if anyone was watching at all.

He was a performer. A professional. He could perform.

He took a deep breath.

He wasn't unaccustomed to being stared at like this. There were eyes all over Hell, gross organic growths pasted on bricks and peering out from beneath peeling wallpaper. He'd spent nights in bedrooms where he'd had to ignore the eyes watching him from the corners; but most of the eyes had no intelligence behind them. They just dumbly and sluggishly followed whatever motion they could find, like sunflowers following the sun. This mechanical eye, perfectly round, set into a ring of metal, reminded him far more of the gear-framed star ruby-like cameras he'd seen years ago on Sir Pentious's airship—

Searing heat shot through Alastor's abdomen and halfway up to his chest. A chord from a song he'd first heard in Harlem played and stopped. His hips automatically rocked forward. Right. Yes, yes yes yes, this was what he was here for. Oh, focus on that thought. For all Alastor knew, Sir Pentious may well have introduced cameras to Hell. He'd once told Alastor that every one of the mechanical eyes he himself had built, he could see through.

Surely he could see Alastor now through this one. (Pretend he made this one.) Somewhere miles away on his airship, in a dark room faintly lit by the blue glow of rows upon rows of televisions, Sir Pentious could see Alastor here. He could see that Alastor—proud, arrogant man though he usually was—had willingly demeaned himself to sitting on a filthy, fluid-stained bed in a tiny, roach-infested room in a hotel that was designed for the sole purpose of connecting extroverted perverts with introverted perverts; demeaned himself to exposing his naked body—he frantically tried to undo the tiny buttons on his boxers— _exposing his naked body_ to whoever in Hell might care to see it... and he was doing it all for him. All for Sir Pentious. All to show him—

Alastor tugged his gloves off so he could more easily fiddle with his boxers' buttons. Were his pants blocking the camera's view of his crotch? He shoved them over his knees and down around his calves, past his garters, to just below where his leg hair began thickening into a layer of fur.

What were the odds that Sir Pentious was watching, really? Really? Next to non-existent. They had to be. Not a chance in a million. Didn't that just make this display of devotion all the more potent? Because he was making it regardless of whether or not Sir Pentious ever saw it? With no hope for a reward, no hope for recognition, no hope for reciprocation. No hope at all. And yet he was doing this anyway. Which meant if he beat that chance in a million and Sir Pentious _did_ see him, he'd realize—

Alastor hadn't been consciously aware of the fact that he'd managed to get his boxers undone until his hand was around his cock, trying to jerk it back up to full hardness. A blues song started playing, too faint and distant for the words to be intelligible, the first tune he could call up with the same rhythm as his hand. He'd already cum once earlier that evening, for all the satisfaction it had given him; he had to stroke himself gingerly now, the skin tender. He'd had quite a few unsatisfying nights recently. His face was burning—he was still staring at the camera—and who in the world could be watching him on the other side? How many?

With his free hand, he awkwardly tried to tug his boxers over his knees and down to join his pants, and then leaned back, sighing through his nose. Even after the trouble he'd taken to gag himself, he almost hoped the broadcast _didn't_ have audio. He was already starting to breathe heavily, and the sound of his breath was overpowering the music and dissolving into static like a bad signal; he sounded like an obscene phone call through a walkie-talkie. The metal bars of the headboard dug into his back, one against his left shoulder blade and one just to the right of his neck. The top of the headboard pressed into the top of his neck; the back of his head rested against the wall.

He realized how he was resting and immediately sat back up—the headboard and wall _both_ had to be filthy, what in the world was he getting against his hair and shirt?—and he focused on the camera again. He wanted to say, _Look at this. Look at me. Look at all this grime and squalor. Don't think I find it any less disgusting than you do._ He could have given the camera an unbroken monologue if not for the tie tugging back at the corners of his mouth and holding down his tongue. _But this is the only way I can show myself to you, so here I am! It's the most embarrassing thing I've ever done in my life—does that show? Or is it completely hidden behind the fact that I'm still smiling and the fact that I'm the hardest I've ever been—_ Despite being unable to speak, he played the words in his head as sweat rolled down his forehead and trickled down his spine. He let go of his cock long enough to shakily unbutton his shirt, tug it off, and let it crumple in a pile on his tail.

The only item of clothing he was left wearing that wasn't down around his ankles was his undershirt: a ratty black t-shirt he'd picked up nearly thirty years ago that listed the tour dates for a rock band he'd never even listened to. A smattering of sleep-deprived voyeurs were about to get a wildly inaccurate impression of the Radio Demon's musical tastes.

 _I only know this band exists because I heard you'd played the pipe organ for them._ No matter how Alastor looked on the outside in his day to day life, all nicely dressed up like he hadn't changed a bit since the day he died, somewhere just underneath the surface was Sir Pentious. _I snuck into their show, saw you weren't on stage, stole a shirt, and left. If you see me like this, will it be enough for you to realize that all this is for you?_

His excessively overworked equipment had finally managed to ooze a few drops of pre; he eagerly used up the meager lubrication, found it insufficient to let him work himself as fast as he wanted to, and without a thought bent forward to drool the saliva he'd been unable to swallow for the past few minutes onto his dick. 

It took him a couple of seconds to realize what he'd just done, and then his music cut off with an ugly record scratch. The burning in his cheeks spread to cover his entire head—down the back of his exposed neck, up to the tips of his ears, itching on his scalp beneath his sweaty hair. In the sudden silence, he thought he could even hear his humiliation ringing in his ears. He was _drooling_. Drooling on his _own penis_. For an _audience_. Like a... He tried to think of a comparison, but could think of no class of animal nor sinner he would ever imagine capable of something so extravagantly wanton.

Something sickly bloomed low in his abdomen, tendrils tickling over his stomach and crawling between his ribs and thighs, and he wasn't sure if it was arousal or shame. He wasn't sure if they were different things.

He was so _close_.

He jerked himself faster, bending his knees farther apart, legs shaking to try to hold them at the awkward angle with his ankles still partially tied together by his pants. He thoughtlessly kicked off a shoe to pull one hoof free of his pants and boxers. A song he didn't remember the name of played chaotically, trying to keep pace as he started thrusting into his grip. His free hand clutched at his coat and then at his undershirt, crumpling up the hem of the shirt, pulling it higher and exposing the trail of red hair that stretched up toward his belly button. Could he pull it all the way up, leave himself completely exposed to anyone who might be watching? Did he have the audacity? Did he have the depravity? Did it even matter when he was already fully exposed from the waist down?

His eyes never left the camera. His silent monologue continued in his head: _Can you tell that I'm not performing for an audience, but just for one person? Have you guessed that it's you? Look in my eyes: can you tell just from looking that I'm doing this because I love you? I love you and I'm going insane. I don't know what else I can do._

Maybe Sir Pentious was staring at his screen just as intently as Alastor was staring at the camera. Maybe with his hands wrapped around his dicks the same way Alastor's hand was wrapped around his own. Maybe he had the same desperate, empty, aching want in his chest that Alastor had. Or maybe he sat back with hands laced, haughty, impassive, sneering, disgusted by what Alastor had been reduced to—

Alastor's shoulders slammed back against the headboard's metal bars, his head leaning back against the dirty wall, his eyes rolling up until he couldn't see. Beneath the song he'd chosen he heard what he thought was a hymn; he heard the pipe organ play. Drool ran down his chin and his teeth pierced his bow tie's band as he whined white noise. Around Alastor's makeshift gag, would anybody be able to read his lips as he tried to moan _Pentious, Pentious, Pentious_ —? He jerked his hooves toward his ass, rolled his weight onto his knees, and bucked up his hips, presenting as much of himself as he could to the watching camera. _All of this is for you. Every drop of it is for you. Please look at me, look at me, look at me—_

There it was. This was what he'd needed.

###

Before going into room 13, the Radio Demon had said to the clerk, "I suggest you think _very_ carefully before pushing that button."

And the clerk _had_ thought very carefully.

And after thinking very carefully, he had decided that he was less worried about what the Radio Demon might do to him if he pushed the button than he was about what his boss _would_ do to him if he didn't.

So he pushed the button.

When he pushed the button, it sent an automatic command to the peep hotel chain's streaming site to add a banner at the top of the page announcing that someone _interesting_ was currently live—maybe a minor celebrity, maybe a fan-favorite frequent visitor—and doubling the price to access the pay-per-view streams from the particular hotel with the visitor in question.

He'd never had to do _this_ before—nobody interesting enough ever came in during his shifts—but he pushed the button a second time.

That doubled the price again and sent an automated email to subscribers who'd asked for alerts from this particular hotel, letting them know that there was a _really_ notable personality in house.

Pushing it a third time doubled the price yet again and broadened the automated email to subscribers of any hotel in the chain.

Pushing it a fourth time didn't do anything but cause the front desk to get a phone call from someone far enough above him that he didn't even recognize her voice. "Ain't no way you've got a four-star celebrity in that dump, what the fuck's going on? You start kickin' the button when you blew your load?"

"Check the stream from room thirteen, ma'am."

There were a couple of seconds of shuffling sounds and muttering, and then the line fell silent. "Hooo-lyyy _shit_."

The banner on the streaming site was updated with the name of the celebrity in question and the pay-per-view cost of the show was kicked up to ten times the usual price.

The upper management phone voice said " _Nice_ " before she hung up, and the Radio Demon didn't charge out of his room looking ready to do his level best to double-kill the clerk, so he figured pushing the button had been the right choice.

And Mr. Radio "I don't want to know anything about anything that was invented after I died" Demon, who was only vaguely aware that the peep hotel probably had a website somewhere but certainly had never visited it, had no idea.

###

Alastor had jizzed on his pants.

He fixed his monocle back in place so he could properly look at his pants in dismay. How had he managed that?

His pants were still crumpled up around one ankle. Maybe it wouldn't look so bad once he'd gotten them pulled on properly. He carefully stuck his hoof back into his boxers and pants—his sock was missing, he was still wearing his garter but it wasn't attached to anything, where had his sock gone?—and lifted his hips to get his pants pulled back on. And...

Nope. The semen ran in little spurts all the way down one leg of his pants. How had he still had enough left in him to do that?

He fought not to grimace. He was still on camera. Someone might still be watching him. That thought didn't hold nearly the appeal it had a moment ago. That was probably a good sign, wasn't it? It meant that he was once again in control of his mind and his urges?

It didn't feel like a good thing. He was exhausted.

He worked his tail through its slit in his underwear and pants, zipped his pants and buckled his belt, searched for his missing sock, tried to figure out exactly what fluids had gotten rubbed into it—they weren't _his_ fluids—and reluctantly decided to stick the sock in a pocket and pull his shoe back onto his naked hoof. At least his shirt was still clean—no, wait, his undershirt, he'd gotten some on his undershirt too. He stretched it out to examine the damage. Only a drop, but at this point it was more an insult than anything else. How had he _done_ that? He wiped his undershirt off on his pants—whatever, he didn't care anymore, he just wanted to leave—and pulled on and buttoned his shirt. As he tugged his gloves back on, he considered whether he could conceal the worst of the pants stain with his coat—

His coat, which he'd placed over the filthiest part of the mattress, and then sat on.

He climbed off the bed, standing carefully in the narrow space next to it. He picked his coat up, looked at the back, and wished he hadn't. So. That was going to need dry cleaning.

He wiped his pants off with a cleaner corner of his coat, folded it inside-out, and summoned up his microphone cane. "I think this is about as presentable as we're going to get, don't you?"

"Under the circumstances? Oh yeah." The microphone's eye rolled around, taking in Alastor. "Where's your bow?"

"My—?" He felt his collar, then looked toward the bed. It was flopped sadly at the head of the bed. His sharp teeth had cut through the band of the tie. "Hm." He delicately picked it up and stuffed it into the same pocket as his sock.

He didn't look at the camera as he swept out of the room.

If the front desk clerk thought there was anything unusual about a guest coming out of a room with his coat and tie missing, he didn't say so. "You've still got thirty minutes."

"Oh, well, I _hate_ the thought of not getting my money's worth!" His invisible studio audience laughed. "I've finished my business. What do you expect me to do, stare at the camera and whistle 'Rhapsody in Blue' until I've used up my time?"

The clerk mumbled an apology that Alastor ignored as he strode out the door. He nodded politely to the two ladies and headed down the street. If he was lucky, maybe he could get to the hotel and shower before everyone was up. And then he could put this awful night behind him.

Even alone on a pitch-black street, after the nighttime businesses closed but before the daytime businesses opened, Alastor felt strangely like he was being watched. Like the camera was still trained on him.

Nobody who mattered would ever know. The hotel clerk and the two ladies outside would have a strange story that nobody would ever believe, and all knowledge of this night would slip away. And he'd done this at a rundown nothing of a peep hotel in the middle of nowhere; surely the broadcast had had half a dozen viewers at most. More likely no more than three. Most likely none.

Surely, nobody had seen him.

###

Practically nobody checked their email at four in the morning.

But _some_ people did.

Sixteen people had jumped into the stream (including several viewers who insistently reassured the other viewers in the chat that "seriously i'm not even into dick, i'm just here to see if this really is the motherfucking radio demon") by the time the Radio Demon managed to get his cock out of his mindbogglingly old-fashioned boxers ("does his underwear have BUTTONS? are those BUTTONS? holy fuck"). When you're one of only sixteen people watching The Motherfucking Radio Demon perform for a voyeur cam in the middle of the night, you do two things:

One, you message everyone you know who even might be awake to come see this shit.

And two, you record the hell out of that stream.

By the time the Radio Demon left the room—disheveled and half-dressed, and quite entertainingly so ("HIS SOCK! HIS FUCKING SOCK IN HIS POCKET! WHY?? WHAT THE FUCK???")—forty-four people were watching.

But a whole lot more were about to.

By six in the morning, a copy of the recording had made its way to 666 News' email tip line. In return, the news desk emailed the tipster a voucher for a $50 gift card.

666 News _loved_ having freshly-leaked celebrity sex tapes to report on their morning show.

###

Rarely had Alastor been more grateful for the wide berth he received in public. He didn't want to think what he must smell like right now. As he made his way to the Happy Hotel, he avoided the route of his usual morning stroll, reluctant to cross paths with the few friendly acquaintances he had who might try to stop and chat or who might take note of the fact that, by Alastor's usual standards, he was severely underdressed. He told himself that the fact that he was passing through neighborhoods he didn't usually visit was why it felt like more people than usual were staring out their windows and across the street at him. He was an unusual sight around here, that was all. Or maybe they _weren't_ staring more than usual. Maybe this was the usual amount of staring he warranted. Maybe he was just getting paranoid.

Sometimes, between the buildings, he could see an airship near the horizon, glinting in the light of dawn. He tried not to look at it.

Alastor didn't have magic to wash things, but he _did_ have magic to dry things that were wet. He hung his soiled pants, sock, and undershirt in the shower to soak while he cleaned off, used one of the hotel's disposable toothbrushes to scrub the stains off while they were wet, and with the snap of a finger dried them. He had to plug the bathroom sink with a wash cloth to fill it with cold water and cheap hotel shampoo to wash his coat, but the stains came free easily enough. There were men his age out there, he thought wryly, who didn't even know how to clean a pair of overalls with the help of a washer and dryer. And here he could do his own laundry in under an hour with nothing but the amenities in a hotel bathroom. Sure, he had always been a tad more resourceful than the average sinner—but sometimes it baffled him how helpless other people really could be. He supposed it was to his good fortune that he'd been a lifelong bachelor. It meant he'd had to learn to be self-sufficient.

His bow tie was a little trickier. At least the points where he'd bitten it would be hidden under his shirt collar. He managed to stitch it back together with dental floss; he could get a replacement bow after work. By the time he was done in the bathroom, nobody would be able to guess his clothes hadn't come straight from the dry cleaner. He slipped out into the hall and made to act as if he'd only just arrived at the hotel.

He was proud of his self-sufficiency. He always had been. When he'd told his mother as a boy that he never wanted to get married and she'd asked him whether he expected his mother to keep cooking dinner for him for the rest of his life, he'd insisted that she teach him how to cook for himself. Ever since he was a child, he'd been determined to stand on his own. How many other people out there, living or dead, could truly say that they were dependent on no one but themselves? How many other people could honestly say they didn't need anybody else?

As he passed a long window on the way to the lobby, he forced himself to keep his gaze pointed straight ahead, avoiding looking out the window at the distant airship.

"Hey, Alastor?"

"Present and accounted for!" he called. He turned off course and in the direction of Charlie's voice, summoning up his cane, tousling his bangs with one hand to make it less obvious he'd just combed. "You sound concerned! Is something the matter?" Good, just what he needed: a problem first thing in the morning. Something to occupy his thoughts and get him back into the swing of things.

"Yeah, uh..."

When Alastor caught up with Charlie, she was halfway from her office to the lobby, frowning at her phone. She turned her worried look from the screen to Alastor. "Did you, uh... do anything... _unusual_ last night?"

Ice filled his veins. His smile froze in place. "Unusual how?"

Charlie opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. "Weeell..."

His stomach sank.

Charlie fumbled on, "You see, uh..."

"Hey, is Alastor in?!" Angel made an impressive but futile effort to look casual as he power-walked around the corner to join the conversation. " _Al!_ " Angel pounded him on the back with two hands. "Can't believe I never pegged you for the type! Figured you'd be more into _watching_ , if anything—but I shoulda guessed, huh? Theatric you are. Way to go!"

Charlie dragged a hand down her face. Alastor stared at Angel in abject, unblinking horror. 

Angel lowered his voice a bit. "But hey, uh. Just so you know? You absolutely sucked." He shrugged apologetically. "Nothin' to be ashamed of, everybody starts out a rookie. You ever wanna improve your act, swing by my room, I'll be happy to give you some tips, huh?" He was clearly _trying_ to keep his smile friendly, but it was coming across more like this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.

Alastor stared at Angel. And then stared at Charlie. And then stared at Angel again.

And finally fixed his gaze on Charlie. "Sorry. _What?_ "

###

By the time they'd made it to the common room and turned the TV on, Vaggie had joined the party—unsurprisingly, fuming mad. "The news is already speculating that you're taking 'lessons' from the Happy Hotel's first guest." She formed the finger quotes around the word "lesson" like she very much wanted to use them to claw out Alastor's jugular. "I thought you were supposed to be helping _reverse_ the hotel's bad reputation?" Charlie, sitting on the couch next to Vaggie, patted her arm soothingly.

Alastor couldn't begrudge Vaggie for her anger. No, it didn't make the hotel look good. It didn't make _anyone_ look good. It _certainly_ didn't make Alastor look good.

"Hey, that's bullshit," Angel said, sprawled sideways across an armchair. "If I was giving him lessons, do you think I'd let him go out looking _that_ stupid?" He gestured at the clip playing in the top left corner over the morning newscaster's schadenfreude-fueled smirk. (Alastor couldn't believe they were _playing_ it. Yes, yes, this was _Hell_ , but he was certain that just a few decades ago they never would have put full frontal nudity, much less masturbation, on the morning show. Sure, maybe on the soap operas and late night talk shows, but...) "I mean, amateur porn is cute 'n' all, but usually it's cute because the amateur is all golly-gee-whiz about getting dicked down, ya know? Not because he doesn't know how to take off his own underwear."

"That's not the point!" Vaggie snapped, ignoring Charlie as she escalated from patting her to full-body leaning against her. "Who cares about the _quality_ of the sex tape when it _shouldn't exist in the first place_ —"

"If you don't _mind_ ," Alastor said, voice raised to be heard, "I am _trying_ to hear!"

The others fell silent, staring at him. Maybe he'd raised his voice more than he'd meant to. He stood perfectly straight, hands clasped on top of his cane, and ignored their looks as he listened to the broadcast.

"... isn't any audio with the recording, making it harder to confirm the identity," the newscaster was saying—he was somebody Alastor didn't recognize; he never caught the news this early in the morning. "According to PEI Hellwide Holdings, Inc., the location doesn't have microphones in any of its rooms."

Small mercies.

"Even at this early hour, discussions and flame wars are hotly raging online. Let's take a look at some of them—"

Alastor tried not to flinch when the clip in the corner blew up to fill the screen. A series of subtitle boxes—the online discussions?—scrolled one after another at the bottom of the screen. Some doubted the filmed performer's identity. More believed. Most were nauseatingly lewd. Was that really _him?_ Him being talked about like that—him _on screen_ like that? He could even see his own balls twitching.

His stomach churned.

How many people were watching this?

Didn't Sir Pentious watch the morning news?

The image froze suddenly—right on the image of him drooling on himself, a glob of saliva dripping halfway to his dick. He couldn't stand the crazed, dazed look in his eyes, the sight of how his fingers curled, the way the corners of his mouth fought against their gag to twist up higher. He turned sharply away from the screen.

And his gaze landed on Charlie with the TV remote and Vaggie. Both of them were looking at him with naked concern. "Al?" Charlie said. "Are you alright?"

"What?"

Behind him, Angel said, "You look like you're about to hurl, dude."

Alastor bit one corner of his mouth to make sure he was still smiling. "I..." How the hell did he explain this? How _could_ he? What _possible_ explanation could he offer for his actions that wouldn't make him sound like he wasn't insane?

There was no sane explanation for why he'd do this.

He laughed; he decided nobody would think it strange if his laugh sounded a little strained. "Well, what do you know! _Quite_ the convincing celebrity impersonator!" He swung his cane around his back and stepped closer to the TV, leaning forward to examine the image. His eyes couldn't quite focus on it. "I suppose I should be flattered." He chuckled. "You know what they say about imitation, after all."

There was a moment of silence. He felt his clothes itching against his skin, his collar rubbing against his neck; he could _feel_ the flakes of crusted bodily fluids clinging to the back of his coat, where everyone in the room could clearly see them. Yes, yes, he'd washed it all off—but what if he hadn't?

For a moment, he was terrified none of them would say anything; he'd never convince them if none of them said anything.

But then Vaggie said dubiously, "You're saying that's an _actor?_ "

He almost sighed in relief. "Well, sure!" he said, spinning around to face them. If they kept questioning him, they kept giving him excuses to elaborate on his lie without it looking unnatural; the longer he talked, the better odds he had of talking them around to his story. "More likely a shapeshifter than your typical actor—unless I've got a secret twin nobody told me about." His studio audience laughed, right on cue. "He got the face too close for it to be makeup—although the accuracy _under_ the clothes is, mm... questionable." He was taking a risk that none of them were going to ask him to prove it by dropping trou. It was, admittedly, a sizable risk. From the look on Angel's face, he was considering asking something. If any of them decided to call his bluff, they didn't even need to dare him to show his equipment—just his boxers. Or his socks. Or his undershirt. Or the band of his bow tie...

Angel laughed. "Really? You think someone would go to all the trouble of shapeshifting into an _identical_ double of you, _and_ copying your clothes, just for... what? Couple hours of fun? Who _does_ that?"

Dryly, Alastor retorted, "Haven't you ever heard of _cause-play?_ "

While Angel was, apparently, groping around for a reply to that, Alastor went on, "But how should _I_ know whether he did it for fun? Maybe it's an attempt at character assassination. Maybe someone's trying to get on my nerves. At any rate, it's far more likely that he's an imposter than it is that I did this while sleepwalking!" He nodded to Angel. "You said yourself the damned fool doesn't know how to take off his underwear. I think I'd know how to remove my own clothing, don't you?"

Angel had obviously been exaggerating when he said that. Alastor was hoping Angel wouldn't remember that he'd obviously been exaggerating. To Alastor's relief, Angel settled back in his chair, giving the TV a thoughtful look.

He wasn't sure the girls were buying it yet. When he glanced back at them, they looked uncertain—but far from persuaded. The pressure of his bow tie around his neck felt wrong. Was it crooked? Was it coming untied? Had his makeshift floss sutures started to unravel? Were the edges of the floss sticking out from under his collar? He couldn't check without drawing attention to it. Give him another opening. Give him more room to talk, to justify his story—

"It's... definitely a very _good_ impression," Charlie said dubiously.

"I should say so! Why, I'd shake his hand if I didn't know what he'd been doing with it, ha ha." He waggled a finger, "Not flawless, though. I'll bet you _anything_ —" he smacked the tip of his cane against the frozen image of his drooling mouth, "—that he gagged himself to hide the fact that he can't do _my voice_." He momentarily clicked between stations, simultaneously speaking in two separate voices, static filling the space in between them.

"There's no audio recording at the peep hotel," Charlie pointed out.

Alastor rolled his eyes. "Then why gag himself at all? He probably didn't know there wasn't audio!" He gauged the look in Charlie's eyes, then went on confidently, "No. Clearly, he couldn't do my voice— _and_ he couldn't get my underclothes right. Look at that thing!" Alastor gestured dismissively at his own undershirt, half-visible from his obscene pose in the frozen footage. Don't call his bluff, don't ask what he's wearing right now. "Have you _ever_ known me to listen to electronic bands?" 

"That's a metal band," Vaggie said.

"Metal, electronic, what's the difference? _All_ instruments are electrically powered these days, aren't they?"

Vaggie gave Alastor a raised-brow look, turned the same look on the screen, and rolled her eyes at the ceiling as she flopped back against the couch. "Yeah, that's not you."

Alastor wasn't quite sure how he'd won that point, but he wasn't going to question it.

Charlie slumped forward in her seat, elbows on her knees. "That's... _really_ an impressively fucked up prank," she said.

He'd convinced all three of them. He could have collapsed with relief. Three down, the rest of Hell to go.

God, _the rest of Hell_.

Charlie went on, "Do you think it _is_ a prank? Or someone trying to slander you?"

"Well, I..." He paused and glanced back at the screen. "Does it count as 'slander' if he didn't actually say anything?"

"You know what I mean."

Alastor shrugged dismissively. "Who _cares_ which it is? It doesn't matter! This little thing isn't going to affect my life." Please, please, please— "It's not like I'm the first celebrity to get a porn parody! How many of _them_ have been affected by it?"

Angel raised a hand. "I actually know like three different guys who've played you in pornos."

"There, you see!" Alastor scoffed at Angel, "And _you_ thought it was actually me."

Angel shrugged. "The dude in the film acted _exactly_ as clueless about what to do with a dick as you do. It was very convincing."

Vaggie pointed at Angel. "You said you didn't know who the Radio Demon is! And you know people who _played_ him?"

Angel shrugged with two more arms. "I didn't know who they were supposed to be playing! Thought they were supposed to be a gay escapee from a barbershop quartet or something. Didn't know why _anyone_ would be turned on by that, but..."

"Angel," Alastor said sincerely, "you have no idea how gratifying it is to hear that you consider me nobody's turn on."

Angel snapped off a couple of finger guns at Alastor.

Charlie asked, "Do you want me to—I don't know, officially announce that this is all wrong or something? Like," she wiggled her fingers, "in an official royal capacity?"

"Will this royal decree include a musical number?"

" _Obviously_."

"Tempting! But no, that's a bit... _excessive_. 'The lady doth protest too much' and all that. No no," he waved off the offer. "It's not true, and that will become self-evident soon enough. The less fuel we feed the gossip fire, the sooner it will burn itself out."

Vaggie asked, "And you don't think the fact that you're _not_ making an official statement will make people talk?"

"Oh, for maybe a day," Alastor said, shaking his head in amused exasperation. "But there's only so much of a fuss you can make over _nothing_." He idly twirled his cane in one hand, as though he hadn't a concern in the world. " _Some_ people might remain unconvinced—but those people are _strangers_. Even my enemies know that even if I'm a bit of a wildcard, something like this would be _wildly_ out of character for me!"

###

Watching the morning show in an airship several miles away, one of Alastor's enemies was just thinking to himself that even if Alastor was a bit of a wildcard, something like this was wildly out of character for him.

###

Charlie continued to worry about the potential damage to Alastor's reputation all this might cause; her concern gave him the excuse he needed to bow out of his usual duties on the pretense of monitoring the news to ensure that this didn't evolve into a full-blown PR crisis for the Happy Hotel. He was nervous that the "offer" would tip off the others to just how shaken he really was by this; but Charlie had gushed gratitude to him for offering to substitute as the hotel's social media manager. (What the hell was a social media manager?)

It was surprising how quickly and easily the hotel was willing to accept his story and take his side. Maybe because they didn't want it to be true. Maybe because it really _did_ seem impossible for Alastor to sink so low. Even Vaggie had ducked into the common room while Alastor was watching the TV, hovered in the doorway, and finally awkwardly said, "People are fucking pigs," before excusing herself.

He found he appreciated the support, even if he damn well knew he didn't deserve it.

Trying to get news about his own scandal was like standing on a beach up to his chest in water as the surf washed in and out. One moment he was wading through traffic reports, petty politics, local crimes, and endless commercials; the next moment he was slapped in the face by a wave of new lewd commentary and left gasping for breath as the tide receded and the news turned back to weather forecasts.

Every once in a while, the newscasters swung back around to discussing the sex tape for a couple of minutes, just to catch up anyone who'd slept through the initial report—always accompanied by a minute or so of footage from the tape itself. They seemed uncomfortably fond of the part where he drooled on his own dick and the part where he orgasmed. By the fifth time he'd seen both clips, he was half sure he'd never be capable of feeling arousal again. Silver lining to the day, he supposed. But for most of the morning, there was really nothing _new_ to report. 

In lieu of any novel information, the newscasters started reading off the comments viewers had left on 666 News' website. About a third of them were mercilessly mocking, a third desperately horny, and a third furiously loathing. It took Alastor a while to figure out that the expressions of loathing were actually another expression of horniness, just frustrated. He could have happily gone his entire afterlife without finding out how many people had spent the last eighty-odd years wildly attracted to him and waiting for an excuse to announce it.

If the news broadcast so far had been like the surf washing in and out, then by late morning—by which point the more familiar Katie and Tom were on air—the tide finally came in, fully submerging Alastor and threatening to drown him.

Frequently, the newscasters mentioned that the identity of the performer in the video was as yet unconfirmed and solicited viewers to contact them if they had any info that could prove or disprove that it was really the Radio Demon. After several hours, they'd finally scared up several comments on the story's main online article—"The one where you can watch the full, unedited video," Katie cheerily explained—which, although mostly unverifiable and therefore useless, had stirred up enough amusement that they were apparently newsworthy.

What caught Alastor's attention was one comment made under a throwaway anonymous username, a string of meaningless numbers. The comment, displayed on screen in full, read:

"Listen here you licentious reprobates, I bet you five million dollars that none of you have ever seen the radio demon without his pants on. He doesn't wear shorts; he doesn't go swimming; he doesn't have any lovers. You cannot find a picture of Alastor's legs. That means a wanna-be imposter doesn't know what they look like. But guess what? I HAVE seen his legs. And I can tell you right now that they DO look like that, so that IS the radio demon."

Barely visible beneath the comment, someone else had bellowed, "IS THAT THE RADIO DEMON'S WANG?" and the original commenter had replied, "I have not seen the radio demon's penis."

And that was it. The newscasters had chortled and then made no further mention of this briefly-amusing declaration. The commenter must have vanished off to wherever it was people went on the Internet. Complete radio silence.

Leaving Alastor with a lead weight in his stomach.

Anyone could have left that comment. Any person in Hell could lie, "Sure I've seen him and that's what he looks like," and by luck be right. It could easily be a troll who'd grabbed everyone's attention simply by getting his wild claim in ten minutes before all the other trolls. (Alastor had learned the term "troll" in the last hour from the news.)

Except that there _was_ one person who'd seen under Alastor's pants but not under his underwear. And who was willing to glower down a wall of horny comments and scathingly call them "licentious reprobates." And who, despite having zero attachment to Alastor _now_ , had never been above an opportunity to flaunt the fact that he knew the Radio Demon far better than most other people ever had or ever would.

The Radio Demon's real first name was something of an open secret. Most sinners didn't know it, fewer still used it; but for the past half century Alastor _had_ made a point of introducing himself properly to anyone he planned to talk to for more than fifteen minutes. It didn't mean anything that a random anonymous commenter should know it.

But it _felt_ like it meant something. It felt like a slap across his face.

The lead weight in Alastor's stomach was starting to make him nauseous.

Now he was left with three questions:

One: was it just a lucky troll, or was it _him?_

Two: if it _was_ him, did he just see the news and maybe look at a couple of pictures, or did he watch the video?

Three: if it _was_ him, and if he _did_ watch it... what did he think?

He covered his ears to block out the TV, trying to call the exact words of the comment back into his mind, trying to remember if there had been a single word of it either critical or complimentary toward the Radio Demon. He couldn't remember. It had derided the other commenters, but expressed no opinion about Alastor. He had no way to know.

The lead weight in Alastor's stomach was heating up, softening, growing molten. He was burning inside again.

"Alastor?" Charlie stopped and spun to face Alastor as he hurried past. He didn't stop for her. "What's up? Where are you going?"

"Leaving early today!" he announced brightly, waving over his shoulder. "I've suddenly gained an appointment that I simply can't cancel."

"What—do you have a lead? Appointment with who?"

With sheer, abject personal humiliation and a faux snakeskin pillow.

He let the front door swing shut behind him without answering.

###

Sir Pentious already regretted leaving the comment.

At least he'd made a disposable account—he'd known he was going to regret the comment enough to have the sense not to attach his name to it—but he still should have had enough foresight to not leave the comment at all. Well, damn him for wanting everyone to know how much he knew—that had always been one of his weaknesses, hadn't it? Even when he didn't attach his own name to the knowledge he was so proudly flaunting. Alas. Had there ever been a man who called himself a villain who _didn't_ have to battle with the instinct to monologue?

But he felt less like a villain and more like a fool.

More than that, he was ashamed of his contribution to such unseemly discourse. This dumpster fire didn't need any more trash fueling it.

Even Alastor didn't deserve that.

Sir Pentious had wasted all morning following the news of this public debacle. He'd seen it on TV during breakfast and spent the next hour sitting in his chair, plate empty and tea cold, scrolling through one of his tablets, tracking the news back through meandering celebrity gossip channels to the voyeurism enthusiast forums where the sex tape had first popped up in the wee hours of the morning. He'd devoured pages upon pages of sleep-deprived frantic horny giddy comments, of influencers voicing their opinions—whether it was on the performance's veracity, its quality, or its prudence—and of the broader social media behemoth cracking jokes and jeering at the video. Several of the more prominent media-savvy overlords had made some sly comments about the video. Several people had already commented on the conspicuous _lack_ of comment from Vox, the most active Internet figure with a reputation of enmity with the Radio Demon.

Sir Pentious wasn't fazed by the silence. He suspected Vox was doing the exact same thing Sir Pentious was: digging through the evidence trail, trying to figure out how and why this had happened, and struggling to figure out how he _felt_ about all this, much less how he was going to _react_.

No, that wasn't quite accurate, was it? Sir Pentious already knew exactly how he felt about the video:

He was shocked.

He was revolted.

And he was worried.

Sir Pentious could have watched the video, of course—it had played practically on a loop for an hour during the morning show, and it was available _right there_ on 666 News' front page and as the top item on a dozen other sites besides. But when he'd clicked on 666 News' main article and the video had begun to auto-play, he hadn't been able to get past the sight of Alastor nervously tugging his gloves off to undo his boxers. It had made him sick. He'd paused the video and scrolled down, unable to watch more. Screenshots studded the article, burning into his eyes before he could scroll past. What a barbaric violation of privacy. What little he glimpsed was stomach-turning enough he didn't even consider seeing the rest.

It was no proper way for _anyone_ to behave, _especially_ a man of Alastor's caliber.

And it _wasn't_ how Alastor behaved. For a decade and a half, Sir Pentious had been Alastor's closest ally (until getting summarily backstabbed); and for the half century since then, he'd been Alastor's most jealous stalker. And the man Sir Pentious knew couldn't even bring himself to take his _coat_ off if he wasn't among close, dear friends. Sir Pentious and Alastor had _shoved their tongues_ in each other's mouths and Alastor still hadn't been willing to take off his undershirt, much less his boxers. He'd squirmed anxiously at the mere thought of someone unbuckling his belt!

 _That man_ , stripping himself completely, _tying a gag_ in his _own mouth_ , and exposing himself to _all of Hell?_ That man _jerking himself off_ in front of all of Hell?! Absolutely _not_. He would _never_.

Which begged the question of why he had.

It begged the question of who had compelled him.

Sir Pentious had eventually dragged himself away from breakfast and relocated to his study, eyes still glued to his tablet until he could transfer to one of his computers instead, where he spread his search out across four separate monitors: still digging idly through comments, yes, but first and foremost searching for suspects.

Somebody, somebody had to be controlling Alastor. Or blackmailing him, forcing him— _something_. The thought that _anybody_ could control Alastor was almost beyond belief, but it was the only explanation that made sense. Alastor was powerful, sure, but his biggest claim to fame was _arriving_ in Hell powerful. He was lazy and unambitious, complacent with his natural talents, unlike these modern overlords who worked for years and years to _become_ more powerful. By now, some of them might have magic powerful enough to bring down Alastor—Sir Pentious didn't know; magic wasn't his business. And even if one of them alone didn't, a few working together could. Or one of the infernal nobility, the Hellborn demons. Or a whole pack of sinners—if they worked together, if their plan was clever enough...

So, who were the most likely culprits?

Alastor's apparent current source of entertainment was working at the princess's social experiment of a halfway house, where he was in close contact with Valentino's little star actor. (Sir Pentious didn't usually spend his free time digging into the lives of people he _didn't_ have a personal history with, but Angel Dust had made enough of an impression that Sir Pentious had made an exception and looked him up.) Maybe Valentino had used that connection to... kidnap Alastor, or something. Forced him into star in cheap pornos. Seemed a waste of a thing to do if one had control of the Radio Demon, but maybe there was a personal grudge there Sir Pentious didn't know about, maybe it was revenge.

He doubted Valentino alone had a shot at overpowering Alastor, but he was one of the most well-connected overlords. He could have called in a favor with someone in a higher weight class. Maybe Velvet—she had magic of _some_ kind, Sir Pentious wasn't totally sure what, and she would certainly be the kind of person to suggest spreading evidence of Alastor's defeat across the Internet. Or maybe Vox—he'd also be inclined to show off their victory online, _and_ he hated Alastor enough for it. Hell, leave Valentino out of the theory completely; Vox had the means and motivation to do all this himself...

Sir Pentious's eyes itched. He sat back, rubbing either side of the flat bridge of his nose and then the center of his chest, trying to get his bleary eyes to focus again. How long had Sir Pentious spent digging through overlords' social media accounts, looking for evidence that they'd kidnapped Alastor? And what, pray tell, did he plan to do if he _found_ evidence? Expose them, and earn a swift and violent retribution? Putter his airship right into the territory of an overlord he was no match against and attempt to rescue Alastor?

Rescue _Alastor?_ Sir Pentious's smug, smarmy, two-faced, double-crossing, underachieving slob of an ex?

Was _that_ what he was contemplating?

Yes.

Yes—this whole situation had Sir Pentious worried enough that he was tempted to stop hating Alastor for five minutes just to make sure he was alright.

To be clear, he was still plotting Alastor's spectacular and humiliating defeat... but, not humiliation like _this_. Sir Pentious was evil— _proudly_ so—but he had his limits. There were things so sickening he would never consider them. This sort of degradation was _unthinkable_. Even Alastor didn't deserve to be forced through that.

Sir Pentious sighed and rubbed his eyes again, this time in irritation; then turned off the monitors, pulled his tablet back out, and opened up his file on Alastor's usual daily haunts.

If he'd actually been imprisoned somewhere, then Sir Pentious wouldn't be able to find him anywhere he usually hung out, and that would be _that_ question answered. But if he was still allowed to walk free... Sir Pentious had been tracking his habits long enough that he would be easy enough to locate. And then Sir Pentious could find out straight from him just what the hell was going on. So, where did he tend to visit when things went wrong?

Sir Pentious was furious that this was what he was wasting his day on. But he _had_ to make sure Alastor wasn't being coerced.

###

Alastor fell asleep before dark with a raw, dissatisfied ache between his legs and woke up again before midnight, his nerves buzzing and his signal bouncing wildly across the sky. For another couple of hours, he tried without success to get back to sleep.

Finally, around one in the morning, he gave up. He carefully sewed his bow tie back together—it was ugly, but it would hold—and then got dressed and wandered out into the night. Maybe he'd head to Mimzy's club. She probably hadn't heard the news yet—and if she _had_ , she'd immediately believe any lies Alastor told her about it and be happy to stick him in a more secluded corner.

Even in the middle of the night, walking in public felt like trotting under a spotlight. Every time he passed anyone, he was sure he could feel their gazes turning toward him, their eyes like flashlights that were like x-rays, trying to see under his clothing. He wished he'd given his clothes a second wash before going out. Oh, well—he wouldn't feel stares on his back once he had a couple glasses of bourbon in him.

Alastor was two blocks from the club when, no more than a foot from his head, he heard a gun cock.

He stopped walking, still staring straight ahead. Of all the confrontations he'd dreaded having with a passerby, at least this one had the benefit of being on an unexpected topic. "You _do_ know who you're pointing that at?" he asked, not bothering to glance sideways into the dark alley. "You don't think that thing can stop me from ripping you to shreds, do you?"

"No, of coursse not."

Alastor's breath caught in his throat.

"But I'm counting on a bullet through your brain inconveniencing you enough that you'd rather behave yourself and have a sssenssible converssation," Sir Pentious said.

Alastor had no idea what the rush of emotions coursing through his body was, but suddenly he couldn't feel the tips of his fingers. He tried to swallow unsuccessfully. In some approximation of a normal-sounding voice, he said, "Okay. You have my attention."

He heard scales slithering over cement and the rustle of rubbish being brushed aside. "Get off the sidewalk, I'm not talking to you out there."

Alastor considered bolting across the street.

Instead he turned and followed Sir Pentious into the dark alley.

The silence between them was intolerable; Alastor babbled. "Interesting choice of venue for a meeting." He glanced at an overflowing trash can.

"I got sick of waiting for you at that club of yours," Sir Pentious said. "I was about to give up and try to find you on your morning walk."

"You know I take a morning walk?" Alastor asked. "You know I visit Mimzy's?" Something twisted around his heart.

Sir Pentious half turned to glower back at Alastor. The fangs of his sneer were visible even in the darkness. "You're grown predictable in your old age."

The thing twisted around his heart felt like barbed wire.

"You were waiting for me?" Did he sound as eager as he felt? He feared he sounded like a twitterpated schoolboy. He tried to maintain a proper tone of vaguely amused disinterest. "To what do I owe the honor of a personal midnight visit, oh great wannabe king of Hell?"

"Oh mosst loathéd and detesssted of nemessesss," Sir Pentious snapped, and it almost didn't sting. Now midway between both ends of the alley, he twisted around to face Alastor, rearing up to his full height—his _fuller_ height—had he gotten taller? How had he done that?

And thus fully drawn up, a whole head taller than Alastor, glowering down at him from the shadows beneath the brim of his hat, Sir Pentious demanded, "What the _hell_ was that?"

Alastor would have sold his soul on the spot in exchange for an angel to dive out of heaven and ram a spear straight through his chest. "What the hell was what?"

"Th—the..." Sir Pentious gestured awkwardly, then huffed and planted his hands on his hips. " _You know_ what!"

Wildly, he wondered why Sir Pentious cared. (Did Sir Pentious _care?_ ) "I know what what?" He was stalling for time and he knew it. He couldn't bring himself to keep looking at Sir Pentious's face. He dropped his gaze and saw that Sir Pentious's gun was now gripped in his hand at hip-height, still trained at Alastor. Oh, that was... that was really not the kind of visual juxtaposition Alastor needed to see right now.

His voice a furious hiss, Sir Pentious said, "We _both know_ that I know that it was definitely you."

Alastor wondered, if he leaned forward and wrapped his mouth around Sir Pentious's gun, whether he would be merciful and shoot it. He swallowed hard and fought to keep his voice even. "Oh! So you watched it, did you!"

"Of _course_ not!" Sir Pentious recoiled at the suggestion, arm raised like a vampire warding off a bulb of garlic. "I might _loathe_ you, but I've got enough _respect_ for you that I'm not going to join in on a public humiliation like that!"

Alastor was starting to feel a little lightheaded. He eased his weight onto his cane. "That's... That's quite a bundle of mixed signals you're sending, there." They were giving him some very mixed emotions. Something like shame, something like hope, something like grief, something like dizzying infatuation.

Sir Pentious hadn't even quite said that he hadn't _wanted_ to see it—there had been a time, so _so_ long ago, when Alastor _knew_ Sir Pentious had wanted to see him like that—just that he _respected him too much_ to watch it. Would he have watched it if he'd respected Alastor a little less?

Sir Pentious darted back in toward Alastor, like a cobra striking—Alastor held perfectly still—and when Sir Pentious jabbed his finger into the center of Alastor's chest, it really did feel like that angelic spear he'd been hoping for earlier: searingly painful not so much on a physical level as on a spiritual one, but with something rapturous behind the white-hot wound. He nearly swooned forward into the touch.

"All I want to know is who you did it for!"

Alastor's dead, rotten heart leaped into his throat. He nearly said _you_ but managed to croak out a static-garbled, "What?"

" _Who put you up to it!_ Who made you do it!" Sir Pentious snarled. "Did Valentino get his claws in you? _Vox?_ Is Princess Charlotte using this whole hotel schtick as a cover for sex slavery? Who made you do it?!"

There was an audible click as part of Alastor's brain turned off.

Sir Pentious was close enough that Alastor could see distant street lights glinting in his wide eyes, could see how his forehead was wrinkled with worry.

Sir Pentious was worried about Alastor.

Alastor was over the moon. He was soaring somewhere above Heaven. He could look down and flip off the pearly gates if he wanted.

And he was terrified. The only words running through his partially shut off brain, over and over, were: _this was never supposed to have real life consequences_.

What was Sir Pentious going to do if Alastor named someone? Go try to kill them? Get revenge? _Rescue_ Alastor from them? Oh, the _intoxicating_ thought of Sir Pentious grimly charging off into battle to defend the honor of a pathetic damned sinner who was, truth be told, ten times more powerful than Sir Pentious. And what then—what was _Sir Pentious_ planning to do once he'd finished playing Don Quixote—carry the poor sinner he'd rescued back to his airship, forgive him for his past transgressions, and offer to reestablish their half-a-century-dead alliance to help guard him against such future indignities? _Hah_. Oh, Alastor was letting his fantasies run away with him. No. No, it wasn't possible. He'd already said he still loathed Alastor. Twice.

Besides, who in Hell could Alastor possibly frame? What was he going to do if Sir Pentious charged off with a vendetta against—lord, who had he said—against _Vox?_ Or against _Charlie_ , half-fallen angel and daughter of the ruler of Hell? Sir Pentious would get diced into snake sushi. And if he didn't—the moment Sir Pentious explained what crime Alastor's chosen scapegoat was getting punished for, the whole story was going to fall apart, and somebody else—somebody powerful, and _more likely than not_ , somebody who detested Alastor—was going to be dragged into this drama, and _furthermore_ they'd know—they'd _all_ know—that Alastor was ashamed enough of his own stupid decision to try to pin it on someone else.

But Alastor couldn't tell Sir Pentious the _truth_. He was clearly asking who _forced_ Alastor to do it—it wasn't even conceivable to him that Alastor might choose to do it on purpose! And he was obviously repulsed by the whole thing! If Alastor told the truth—if Alastor told Sir Pentious that he did it all as some grotesque carnal tribute to _him_ —Sir Pentious would be horrified. He'd never be able to look at Alastor again. He was barely able to look at Alastor _now_. 

He couldn't tell the truth. He couldn't let Sir Pentious think he was ashamed. And he couldn't pretend anybody else had forced him to do it.

What story did that leave him with?

No good one.

He swallowed hard, forced a wry tilt to his smile and canted his head, and said, "Why, it was all my own idea, of course! Oh, _you_ know how my life goes: either everything's exciting or nothing is—I've been so interminably _bored_ lately, I thought trying out one of those _celebrity sex scandals_ I keep hearing about might be an intriguing diversion." He emphasized the "celebrity sex scandals" concept with a snip of a faint but sexy-sounding sax solo and the sound of exaggerated wet, smacking kisses. "You know—toss a little grist into the rumor mill, see what kind of grain it produces."

He was talking too fast; he didn't want to give Sir Pentious an opportunity to tell him he was full of bullshit until he'd gotten all the bullshit out of his system. "Unfortunately, there's nobody I want to have a scandal _with!_ So I had to... improvise a bit, to make my own." He forced a laugh. He felt like fainting. There was white noise in his stomach. "It, uh... wasn't as fun as I'd hoped, I'm afraid. Don't think I'll be trying it again." He shrugged, looking at his hands. "Pity. It always seemed so exciting from the outside."

He couldn't look at Sir Pentious. He didn't need to. He could feel Sir Pentious's hard glare burning into his face. He could feel the disgust. He hoped his tie wasn't crooked. It was better this way, with this story, he had to remind himself; how much worse would Sir Pentious's disgust be if he knew he himself was the invisible star actor in Alastor's performance?

Sir Pentious said, "That's not the kind of thing I would _ever_ have imagined you'd do."

Alastor's numb grip on his cane tightened. He shrugged uselessly and opened his mouth to reply, but Sir Pentious continued before he could.

"Then again, I suppose our hisstory has proven that I'm terrible at judging what kind of a person you are, hasssn't it?"

Alastor shut his mouth. Where was that angel with that spear when he needed it? Stab it in his abdomen and twist up his intestines like spaghetti around a fork. He couldn't deal with this shivering, shrieking white noise in his stomach.

"Well... You'd be surprised what lengths you're willing to go to when you're desperate enough." That was probably the only honest thing Alastor had said to Sir Pentious all evening.

Sir Pentious hissed derisively. "You and your _boredom_." He turned away from Alastor, slithering toward the far end of the alley.

Alastor's heart thudded once, like a cannon firing a ball that dropped straight into the ground. He had the sudden sharp sense that this was an _opportunity_ and he was letting it slip through his fingers. If Sir Pentious had come this far out of mere concern—there had to be _some small part_ of him that didn't loathe Alastor completely. Maybe some small part of him that _wanted_ , if Alastor could reach it—

"So," he called, desperately searching for words that could serve as an invitation without making a demand, something that could open the door just a crack without pathetically barreling straight through it, "if—you were holding off on watching because you were all worried that the footage had been leaked without my consent, well..."

And Sir Pentious said, very seriously and very sincerely, "I would vomit."

###

Sir Pentious hadn't glanced back as he left the alleyway. 

So he hadn't seen that Alastor didn't budge. He didn't see that Alastor was still there ten minutes later.

He didn't see how Alastor sagged brokenly against one wall, the tears streaming down his cheeks so thickly the stars above looked like fuzzy white blurs.

He didn't see how Alastor's teeth sank deep into his own skin as he used one wrist to muffle his sobs.

He didn't see how Alastor had unbuckled his belt so he could slide his other hand beneath his waistband to the tortured bulge in his pants, his actions only barely obscured from the streets on either side by shadows and a couple of low trash cans.

He didn't see how Alastor's back suddenly went stiff and his knees nearly gave out and his teary eyes rolled back.

But maybe, Alastor told himself, maybe Sir Pentious had dawdled nearby anyway. Maybe he was just around the far corner, listening.

A small mercy: Alastor couldn't soil his clothes this time. By now he was completely dry.

Cumming hurt.

###

Alastor had intended to make it to the hotel early enough in the morning to neaten up before anyone spotted him slinking back from Mimzy's.

He ran into Charlie on his way in. She glanced over him once—no doubt his breath reeked of booze, his eyes were ringed by deep dark circles, and his smile was holding on by a thread—and she said, "Appointment went bad, I take it?"

He laughed brittlely.

###

It was nearly two in the morning when Alastor approached the Eyeful Tower: a gaudy hotel of improbably French architecture, a vast step up from the isolated dump he'd visited last month. One of a dying breed of classier peep hotels, it had survived the overall decline of the industry by stripping the cameras from half its rooms and converting them into more conventional love hotel rooms. That wasn't the half of the Eyeful Tower that Alastor intended to visit.

Although this midtown street was usually packed during the day, at night the Eyeful Tower was the only business seeing any traffic. The few other pedestrians coming to and from its partially-concealed doors gave the Radio Demon broad leeway as he headed for the entrance.

This lobby was better lit than the Private Eye Inn's. He ignored the obnoxious computerized self-service terminals, knocked on the window to get the front desk clerk's attention, and cheerily requested a room for an hour.

There was no jittery dial nervously twisting back and forth in his chest this time. Just a dead signal.

All his bridges with Sir Pentious were burned. Alastor had offered the best damage control he could— _I did it because I was bored, I didn't even enjoy it_ —and he came out of that conversation at rock bottom. There was no way Alastor could be any lower in Sir Pentious's eyes.

And oh, _god_ , that made him so hard.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!" As Alastor entered his hotel room, an invisible studio audience applauded for their arriving guest. "My, look at this! There's actual floorspace in here! This joint really _is_ a step up, yes sir." He circled the bed and its blessedly clean-looking sheets before taking a seat and looking around for the camera. "I'm _told_ there are actual microphones in this one, too. Let's hope so—it was absolutely _unforgivable_ of me to deprive you all of my voice last month, and I don't intend to make the same mistake twice!"

All Alastor's lies and excuses were going to unravel after this. What was the crew at the Happy Hotel going to say tomorrow once they all knew that he'd done this to himself, lied to their faces about it, and then done it again?

He didn't care to think about it. He didn't care. It didn't matter.

There was the camera—and another. With a quick skim he spotted four bright red mechanical eyes peering down at him, including one on the ceiling directly over the bed. He flopped back and smirked up at it. "I should warn you all—I tend to sing to myself to, ahh..." he pantomimed jerking off, "to help me _keep rhythm_. I'll try not to play anything _too_ embarrassing." He paused; and then he burst out laughing. It was the first real laugh he'd had in weeks. It was a raw, half-hysterical sound. "What am I saying?! What's too embarrassing for _this_ place! That's what you're all here for!"

As long as Alastor was at rock bottom, he couldn't dig any lower. Nothing he did mattered. So what did it matter if, after tonight, Sir Pentious knew that this was more than just Alastor's failed attempt to entertain himself? So what if he thought Alastor liked it?

 _Did_ Alastor like it?

He didn't know. He was pretty sure he hated it.

"That's the fun thing about this place, isn't it?" Alastor said, unbuttoning his coat, tugging his bow tie loose. "Nothing's too embarrassing. No standards. No broadcast regulations. No quality at all. _Oh_ , it's utterly deplorable. But! They let me on the air without so much as a tryout; how many other places can you say that about?" Alastor rolled his eyes. "Of course, I've probably got a longer resume in the broadcast industry than anyone else here—but do you think they bothered to find that out?"

He was taking a risk by not wearing a gag, but so what? Did it matter if Alastor slipped up and said something he shouldn't? Did it matter if in the heat of the moment he spilled a full confession to Sir Pentious? _Oh, yes, this whole display, the one you think so disgusting and nasty, it's all for you, it's a tribute to you, I was secretly hoping you'd watch me jerk myself off in a shady exhibitionist dungeon. I love you. I'm driven to ruination by lust for you. Are you flattered? Are you touched? Does it turn you on?_

Perhaps it would be better if he did confess. If for no other reason than because, god, Sir Pentious deserved the truth. If Alastor no longer had any shred of secret, suppressed hope, no longer had any reason to hold on to dignity and propriety, then shouldn't Sir Pentious have the truth at long last?

But if Alastor needed a second reason: then because the thought of Sir Pentious's loathing— _I would vomit_ —the thought of his revulsion when he found out... It made Alastor's brain boil, his mind melt into delirious lust.

"Still have this," Alastor said, unbuttoning his shirt to show off his metal band t-shirt underneath. "I've never actually listened to them, by the by. But they sent me a couple of concert tickets last week—hah! Saw my last broadcast, no doubt. I hear that Sir Pentious played organ on one of their albums, oh, some thirty years ago; I wonder if he still gets royalties." Saying that name out loud, where all of Hell could hear him, sent another jolt of arousal through his system. "Anyway, you can go thank these fine musicians for inspiring me to do this a second time. Wasn't originally planning on it..."

He focused fully on the camera— _look at me, look at me, look at me_ —and hoped tonight would be the night he blurted out all the things he didn't want to say. Sir Pentious wouldn't be watching; but he'd see the news, wouldn't he?

"So!" Alastor unbuckled his belt, eager to relieve a bit of the pressure that, sooner or later, was going to tear him open from the inside out. His dick was already straining against the fabric of his pants. "Let's get started, shall we?"

**Author's Note:**

> I should mention that this is a semi-sequel to [Cold Day In Hell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21776062/chapters/51958888). (Semi-sequel in that CDIH serves as the backstory for this fic; but _this fic_ does not canonically actually happen after CDIH, I've got a different canon CDIH sequel I'm plotting.) I didn't mention that at the start of the fic because I didn't want y'all to go "oh this is a sequel to something I didn't read" and leave when all you need to know to understand this fic (they're exes because Alastor broke them up in an awful way but he's still in love) is explained in the fic itself. But if you got through this fic and want more Alastor Fruitlessly Pining For Sir Pentious (But With Less Masturbation This Time), then *gestures at link*.
> 
> Post for this fic available on [tumblr](https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/616336366631092224/public-displays-of-affection). If you enjoyed the fic, comments/reblogs there are highly appreciated (as are comments here)!


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